And then, Dodger manager Joe Torre, who has had no trouble letting the precious 22-year-old phenom throw over 100 pitches in fewer innings, decided to pull Kershaw before potentially recording his first complete game in the majors. And it wasn’t necessarily the wrong decision – Jonathan Broxton is warming up no matter what, and no doubt fresher at this point of the game – but wow …

Anyway, Broxton came in, retired the first two batters in the ninth, got two strikes on the third before allowing a single, then made sure none of us would spontaneously combust by inducing a harmless fly out from Kosuke Fukudome to complete the Dodgers’ 3-2 victory over Chicago.

Remember this post, after Kershaw was charged with seven runs in 1 1/3 innings against Milwaukee?

The last time Clayton Kershaw started but failed to get past the third inning – June 10, 2009 – this is what happened the rest of the season: 107 innings, 122 baserunners, 123 strikeouts, 1.77 ERA.

Well, this is what Kershaw has done since failing to get past the second inning on May 4, 2010: 81 2/3 innings, 85 baserunners, 92 strikeouts, 2.20 ERA.

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Rafael Furcal puts the Dodgers in the lead.

Magnificent.

And yet this could have been an incredibly frustrating 2-1 loss for the Dodgers, were it not for the heroics of Rafael Furcal. Two innings after Matt Kemp just missed hitting a three-run home run, Russell Martin led off the bottom of the seventh with a single. One out later, Kershaw sacrificed him to second base, and then Furcal curled a game-changing home run just inside the right-field foul pole. Furcal ended the night a triple shy of hitting for the cycle.

Kershaw, who now has a lower WHIP (walks and hits per inning pitched) and higher K/9 than Tim Lincecum wasn’t perfect. He forfeited the Dodgers’ 1-0 first-inning lead, allowing a long home run to Alfonso Soriano in the second and a pair of hits for a run in the fourth.